VIII INTRODUCTION. 



E'en they, if they scan these pages, 

 Might glean news of other ages. 

 Lets now step back some fifty years ; 

 Excuse me, please, must dry my tears. 



First saw light 'midst vines and bowers, 

 Balmy Florida, land of flowers; 

 Born the time the jessamines bloom, 

 Born in sound of the gulf waves boom. 



Birthplace, too, of the dread cyclone. 

 Whose life is not unlike my own, 

 Nativities both in south's extreme; 

 A brief cavort and a sorrow's dream. 



Transplanted thence to Palmetto State, 

 Where my parents did re-emigrate. 

 There got my imperfect schooling, 

 My only plea against critics ruling. 



Grew up there, and grew a Democrat, 

 Died in the w^ool, tanned in the vat; 

 Reared in sight of the great Calhoun 

 In his zenith, his high, mid-noon. 



A statesman true, wdth eagle eye, 

 A man that boodle could not buy. 

 Like all the State to him I'd freeze ; 

 If he took snuff we all would sneeze. 



And glorious sneezes we then snoze, 

 Every sneeze, tighter to him froze, 

 In the good old days of long ago ; 

 Blessed days, but now do seem slow. 



Thought leads back to old Pendleton, 

 'Twas there my reckoning first began; 

 First hopes all hail the sunny gleams, 

 Steals o'er my soul like happy dreams. 



Sweet to revel in memory's strain ; 

 'Tis sweet solace to a tired brain, 

 But, oh ! do sad, all gone forever ! 

 Return no more forever, ever. 



